6 Things To Do With Conversation Hearts Besides Eat Them

February is that unfortunate month that’s upsetting if you’re single, stressful if you’re not and utterly overwhelming if you’re a groundhog. But if there’s one thing that people in/out/over/under a relationship can be consoled with, it’s discounted sweets on February 15th. But if you dilly dally too much when it comes to picking up the Lindts and supposedly Valentine’s-themed peeps, it’s a whole other problem. What the fuck do you do with a shopping basket full of Conversation Hearts?

I remember being super excited when I received a Valentine that came with candy, but I quickly realized my schoolmate was more foe than friend. I mean, I was eight, so I very well could have had a penchant for chalk and ten character messages? But as it turns out, no I don’t have pica, so chalk isn’t really up there on the list of Things I’d Like to Put in My Mouth. Just because something is “edible” doesn’t mean it counts as food.

So if you have the misfortune of coming into a wealth of FAX ME, U R HOT and LOVE U’s, what do you do? Given that ingestion is out of the question (unless you have a case of pica, you chew you?), how do you overcome your PTVD (Post Traumatic Valentine’s Day) memories and put them to use?

1. Wedding Confetti

Rice has been taboo for the past decade or so out of fear for birds’ teeny tiny stomachs. But if bubbles aren’t you thing, why not throw some candy hearts? I sincerely doubt any pigeon’d be stupid enough to eat them.

Some might call it desperate, I call it “well advertised.”

2. Cufflinks

3. Office Memos

Actually converse with your conversation hearts. Need to schedule a private meeting or up morale? Stick an ONLY U, CALL ME or U ROCK in the intraoffice mail. Just hold off on the KISS ME’s unless you wanna talk to HR.

4. Decorative Stones

Do these things even melt? Plants looking kind of plain but it’s too cold to find river rocks? Just sort out the colours you like and bam, it’s all sorts of lovingly decorated.

It’s like Lego, but for your mouth.

5. Not So Lucky Charms

Next April Fool’s, separate the tasty rainbow foam from the sugary cereal shrapnel and refill your box with your leftover hearts. They’re both kind of chalky and blandly coloured, yet one tastes like rainbows and moonbeams while the other tastes like regret and pissed off roommates.

6. Meeples.

Call me a cheat, but you can’t really get that far with seven tokens in Carcassonne. If your opponents all agree to bend the rules but don’t have the dough for their own custom meeples, just reach for those immortal hearts! If ALL MINE doesn’t scream farmer to you, I don’t what does.

Or worst comes to worst, you can actually try to eat them. Just don’t blame me if your teeth are caked with chalk until March.

Learning to feed yourself can be one of the most terrifying things. Am I about to give myself food poisoning? If I eat this too often will I end up with scurvy? How can I get the most nutritional bang for my buck? Why does this still taste like ass?

With Ode to My Pantry, learn to navigate a grocery store without having a meltdown in aisle three. Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach a queer to cook and stave off malnutrition for another semester.

Hailing from Vancouver, Kristen's still trying to figure out how to survive Montreal's Real Legitimate Canadian Winter. So far she's discovered that warm socks, giant toques and Tabby kittens all play a role in her survival. Her ultimate goal is to rank higher than KStew in the "Kristen + Autostraddle" Google Search competition.

1) That photo of the candy hearts is both pathetic and baffling. Why is “GET REAL” and “TO” something you would want on a candy heart? Also, if you do want candy hearts with lovingly printed sweet nothings, then why would you want the ones that look like a serial killer stamped them? Is it really that difficult to stamp them in the centre of the heart?

2) Carcassonne!

3) Even number 5 sounds better than actually eating them straight; I can’t be the only one willing to try this, right?

These are one of those things that I ate when I was a kid because I was a kid and it was candy and kids are supposed to like candy and I didn’t know that I was allowed to have a differing opinion on that subject. Then one day I had an epiphany that I didn’t have to enjoy absolutely everything that is made of sugar, and on that day I finally stopped eating these chunks of flavourless chalk (along with marshmallows, whipped cream, white cake, and any icing other than chocolate).

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